Children enjoy activities of assembling and dismantling three-dimensional objects. Popular toys have included numerous constructions sets with attachable pieces. Some construction sets include very small pieces making assembly of walls and simulated buildings time consuming sometimes beyond the attention span of some children. Smaller pieces that may be fit into mouths allowing a child to choke are also considered hazardous for small children. In addition, some construction sets when assembled produce very rigid structures, which inhibit observation of the collapse and partial collapse of the construction. Children particularly enjoy observing the reverse of construction.
Inventors have designed many types of interconnectable toy wall panels utilizing hook and loop type fasteners. U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,269 to Murphy (1998) discloses a set of six planar wall panels utilizing hook and loop type fasteners attached to all four corners of each panel, such that the panels may be assembled into a cube. However, the construction disclosed does not resemble toy buildings and securely fastens corner edges with 3-degrees of rotational fixity which disallows collapsible rotation about the panel top edges.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,301 to Dodge (1990) discloses a set of planar construction pieces with opposing surfaces covered with hook and loop type fastening material and connector strips of hook and loop type material. The disclosed construction may be cost prohibitive and appears to impose a limitation on rotation about the connection points, prohibiting the simulation of a collapsible structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,634 to Chang (1999) discloses a kit for building objects of foam blocks covered with loop type fabric with double sided hook type fastening pieces for interconnecting blocks. The double-sided hook type fasteners allow two pieces to be adjacently connected with the double-sided hook fasteners between; however, the construction imposes limitations in rotation of the pieces of the structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,998 to McMurray (1989) discloses a building play toy kit having panels with curved edge strips attached. Each edge strip may include alternating overlays of hook and loop type fastening material along the full edge of the strip effectively creating hinged edges. U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,019 to Harvey (1977) discloses a building toy kit containing planar elements having detachable edges. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,411 to Kurzea (1987) discloses another similar construction, utilizing planar panels that are also connected at the edges by hinge type connections.
The construction identified by these patents imposes limitations on rotation about panel edges and they do not provide for panel interconnections in such a way as to allow resistive rotation about the connection point to simulate collapse through resistive joint rotation. In addition, the construction previously described by the above patents does not allow the interconnected panel edges to move independently with reference to each other, inhibiting the deformation of the structures.
It would therefore be beneficial to provide interconnected panels with a top panel connection which allows resistive rotation about the connection point, the structure exhibiting deformation with the interconnected panels providing independent movement with reference to each other.